Weird news: Test your knowledge

Every state has its quirks, but some states are more quirky than others. To test your knowledge, browse this collection of weird stories and see if you can guess the state where each incident occurred, and find out which state boasts the weirdest news.

Submit your choice on one slide then proceed to the next to see the correct answer.
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Steve Helber/Associated Press

Who throws a burrito, honestly?

A 36-year-old man was arrested for assaulting a teenager with a burrito from Taco Bell.

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Dave Martin/Associated Press

Tampa, Fla.

The man, Erik Brown, flung the food at the teenager’s face, and though the boy was not injured, he was covered in burrito cheese, sauce, and meat. Brown was charged with battery and booked into county jail.

A surprise passenger boarded a bus — while it was moving. This deer crashed through the front right window of the vehicle, sprang up, and pranced around until the bus stopped and it bounded out the front door, slightly disoriented.

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The 52-year-old man, Anthony Cardenas, was arrested in California for his crosswalk vandalism in an intersection that supposedly already had three crosswalks. Workers later painted over his make-shift markings.

This woman pranced her way to YouTube fame with her version of effective exercise: “prancercising.” Her high voice combined with her distinct ’80s style make for a weird workout video for the 21st century.

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Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

Coral Springs, Fla.

Joanna Rohrback, the brains behind “prancercise,” developed her skills and business in sunny south Florida. She wrote a book and keeps a blog about the exercise, and since her prancercise videos went viral, Rohrback has appeared on a number of national programs.

Three members of a city council abstained from voting on a measure aimed at preventing council members from, you guessed it, abstaining on future votes.

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/7159997.js"></script> <noscript><a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/7159997/">In which state did these abstainers abstain?</a></noscript>

City of Ypsilanti, Mich.

Ypsilanti, Mich.

One member of the Ypsilanti City Council proposed a resolution limiting members to only “yes” or “no” votes. The mayor and two council members defended their right to abstain by abstaining from the vote.

Researchers surveying a famous lake made a shocking, orange discovery: monster-sized goldfish flourishing in an unnatural habitat. The goldfish, some reaching over a foot long, were likely the result of people dumping former pets into the lake.

A burglar threw off police in hot pursuit when he fled the scene of his initial crime, only to break in somewhere else. His plunder? Two bottles of beer. Police eventually caught up with him with the help of a helicopter spotlight. During the pursuit, the burglar flung the bottles and proceeded with his fleeing.

Only in Florida does a burglar flee from police and decide to commit a second, fruitless crime. Andrew Fatzinger, 21, took two beers from the second home he burglarized, but was ultimately thwarted and faced a bevy of charges from home burglary, grand theft, and striking a police dog to resisting arrest with violence. The owner of the home from which Fatzinger lifted the beers also wanted to press charges.

This man may look like your average Joe, but he has a much more distinctive name: Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop. The 30-year-old was arrested for violating bail conditions from a previous incident.

When police arrested Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop in Madison, Wis., it caused a media frenzy of reporters mispronouncing this man’s name while trying, in most cases unsuccessfully, not to laugh. The man, whose former name was Jeffrey Drew Wilschke, was tentatively charged with carring a concealed knife and possession of drug paraphernalia and marijuana.

Some weird things happen on Florida’s highways, but a dog shooting a man ranks high on that list of oddities. Gregory Lane Lanier went to the hospital to get treated for the bullet wound in his left leg. A police spokesman said there were possible indications that Lanier fabricated the “dog shoots man” story.

In February 2013, the emergency system of a CBS affiliate broadcast a zombie alert warning people that civil authorities “reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from the grave and attacking the living.”

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Matt Volz/Associated Press

Great Falls, Mont.

Turns out, hackers trusted the the local sense of humor when they overran the emergency broadcast system of the local station KRTV in Great Falls to issue the fake alert. A spokesman for the police department said they did not get any serious calls regarding the impending apocalypse.

Maryland state troopers eventually found the roadside drummer on I-695 and called the State Highway Administration to refill the man’s tank. He wrapped up his impromptu concert, packed up his kit, and drove away without a citation.

An intoxicated woman who crashed her car into a mobile home attempted to flee the scene in another vehicle: a Power Wheels vehicle, to be exact.

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Patricia Harris for The Boston Globe

Arkansas

Jamie Jeanette Craft, 29, attempted her great escape in a Power Wheels toy truck, which reaches a maximum speed of 5 miles per hour. Police took her into custody and charged her with public intoxication, refusal to submit, disorderly conduct, leaving the scene of an accident with property damage and driving while license cancelled, suspended, or revoked.

A 6-foot-tall lamma named Scooter evaded authorities for a number of hours after busting out of his pen and leaping over a 4-foot fence. Three local officers used a taser to tame the llama, lasso him, and return him to his enclosure. The officers were concerned Scooter would run in the road and cause an accident.

It took three count sheriff’s deputies to calm Scooter and another three to help the 300-pound llama into a trailer for transport. Llamas, considered a domestic species in Florida, do not require a permit.

Have you noticed how weird news abounds in Florida? Apparently, others have, too. One website lists weird news headlines and asks visitors to guess whether the news happened in Florida or Ohio, while a south Florida newspaper keeps track of the state’s odd news in a blog called “FloriDUH.”
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